Return
by Scott Summers
Summary: CHAPTER TWO UP The time Alex Summers spent in a coma or in the Mutant X world is finally starting to come back to him... but what will that mean?
1. Chapter 1

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**Return**

**Chapter One: Traces**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel (yet)... these characters belong to them and such. _

_Hope you enjoy it... r/r, lemme know. Thanks!_

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"…alarming."

"What do you mean by _that_, Hank?"

"Well," the blue-furred feline spoke softly, "I suppose it is… alarming… that this was not detected upon your initial, er… re-arrival… in our lives."

"You guys missed something? Between you and Tessa I barely got three minutes of sleep… and you missed something?"

"Your forgiveness, Alex, please… we were dealing with a lot at the time—what with the deterioration of the school, the death of several students, and dare I mention Cassandra Nova."

Summers arched an eyebrow. "Fair enough."

"Though I must admit it is unlikely that we would have… overlooked this."

Alex pulled himself up from Henry McCoy's observation table to examine the computer his teammate could hardly break away from. "What is it, Hank?"

The Beast inched closer and closer to the screen, surveying the results—various DNA strands dancing before his eyes.

"…Hank?"

The large, blue man's feline paws tapped away at his specialized keyboard.

"**Hank**."

"…oh, wha'? Sorry, Alex… this is simply… fascinating."

"Hank, tell me what's going on. Please."

McCoy turned, looking at Alex above his small, black-rimmed glasses.

"Alex… it is theoretically possible that these horrible dreams you're having are related to my… er, findings. The body you're in is, quite simply…"

The Ph.D. stumbled for words.

"…someone else's."

* * *

"That's all he told you? Alex, from what you've told me about these dreams… and now, with these physical manifestations…"

Havok nearly shuddered. He'd woken up every night for the past two weeks in a cold sweat—images of those he loved, only not… images of a world he knew but didn't…

And now things were starting to change. There was more to it than having eaten Gambit's cooking the night before.

"He told me what he knows, Lorna," Alex replied as he and his teammate—and former fiancé—walked through the halls of the Xavier Institute.

"Good thing we keep our brilliant X-Men around," Dane rolled her eyes and smirked. It was the first time Alex had seen her joke or even smile in months.

"…how are you doing, Lorna?"

The green-haired beauty stopped short, students grunting as they were forced to walk around her in the busy halls. Her hip swang to the left and she put her hand upon it. "Alex Summers."

The X-Man stared into her green eyes.

"If this is going to turn into another round of 'poor little green-haired mutant with her ever-growing magnetic control and suppressed rage because she watched 16 million mutants die only to finally return home to the X-Men where she watched an imposter of her father kill one of her dear friends and destroy everything around her' talks… save it. It's time for lunch."

Alex grinned and chuckled, grabbing at her hand and pulling her closer to him. Lorna's eyes never left his and the two stood in the middle of the walkway staring at one another—just laughing.

Until…

"…Lorna?"

The two looked to their left, Alex's eyes this time meeting Bobby Drake's.

Iceman.

Founding member of the X-Men – long-time teammate and romantic adversary –

Polaris' current boyfriend.

"Bobby, I…"

"…hope I'm not interrupting something here," Bobby smiled largely, surveying the two who'd finally separated.

Alex cleared his throat as Lorna wrapped her arms around Drake and kissed his cheek. "Alex and I were just discussing some field tactics."

"…right. I know how pressing that can be, being an original X-Man and being in charge of a team.

Oh… wait."

Havok took a step towards Iceman. "Quality over quantity, Drake… they usually look for maturity when selecting someone to lead one of the squads."

"Or blood," Bobby glared. "Or is it just a coincidence that your brother runs this school?"

"Stop it," Lorna said, glaring at her boyfriend. Her eyes shifted to Alex. "Now."

"Lorna, maybe you should—" Bobby began, but found himself flying back into the wall.

"Frozen or not, Bobby," Lorna growled, "you still have iron in your blood."

Havok grinned. "So much talk about blood, Bobb—guhh!"

Summers slammed into the opposite wall.

Polaris began walking down the hall, stopping momentarily to roll her eyes at the two grown men pulling themselves from the ground

"Find someone else to fight over."

* * *

"I believe it will help, yes," Emma Frost, Co-Head of the Xavier Institute, said with a wry grin.

"How does it work?"

"Essentially, Alex," Hank McCoy spoke from behind her, "she'll be using your thought patterns to write a sort of… telepathic journal."

"Why not just read my mind right now and see what comes up? Why this… 'journal'?"

"Alex," Emma spoke as she stood, her cape following suit, "you needn't worry about me digging sultry entries about Ms. Dane up… those are written all over your face."

"I don't know what you're…"

"If I attempt to tackle and pull the dreams you're having into the foreground while you're conscious—there's no telling what your mind would present us with. You don't understand what's happening to yourself—the mental blocks alone…"

"If you're sleeping, Alex—if Emma can tap into your mind _while_ these things are happening…"

"I'll be able to witness and dissect what's happening in your mind without your mind interfering and projecting its own set of ideals upon the situation."

"Should I be worried that my best friend and girlfriend are finishing each other's sentences now?" Scott Summers entered, standing in the doorway.

"We did have a lovely time at the opera last week… didn't we, Emma?" Hank grinned at Scott.

"Very funny, Hank," Cyclops returned the expression.

"The truth usually is," Emma winked in Scott's direction.

Havok's stomach twisted.

"I _felt_ that, young Alex," Emma turned. "Do you wish to proceed tonight or not?"

Alex nodded.

"Excellent," Hank murmured.


	2. Pulling

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**Return**

**Chapter Two: Pulling**

_Please r/r -- thanks for the reviews so far!

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__Everything is wrong._

_And right._

_There's so much that I don't know – and at the same time I know everything._

_These faces – the people living here with me…_

_In this… castle?_

_These are the faces that have kept me going over the years… kept me strong, kept me true… though not always._

_There was Sue Richards. Probably my biggest regret—probably my…_

_Wait. The Invisible Woman?_

_Maddie… I slept with Sue, cheating on Maddie… just after little Scotty was born…_

_Maddie..? Maddie… Scotty… _

_Madelyne Pryor… Scott's wife… The Goblin Queen…_

_She nearly killed us all… and poor little Nathan…_

_Nathan… Cable…

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_

"I certainly hope Emma is making more sense of this than I am," Hank said in a low tone as his eyes shifted once more to Cyclops.

Underneath his visor, Scott's eyes surveyed the words which were appearing on the small screen before his longtime friend. He'd never seen a mental projection of this sort.

"Don't think too hard, Scotty boy," Hank grinned. "You'll hurt yourself. It's just a little contraption—in conjunction with Emma's telepathy—which allows…"

"That's enough, Hank," Scott smiled. "Just help my brother."

"We're trying," he sighed.

The two men turned as Emma let out a small grunt. Her hands rested casually over Alex's temples, her eyes closed and focused tightly.

"…do you love her, Scott?"

"…what?"

"Listen—I know you don't have anyone to talk to about it… and if you'd like to talk… well, I'm still the same ol' Hank."

"Have you seen a mirror, Hank?"

"Har."

Scott grimaced. "I know… and I don't know… I don't know, Hank."

"Well, I suppose she's grown on all of us in her way, if it's all the same… just know that I… support your… decisions."

"Thanks, Hank."

* * *

_Hank… something's wrong with Hank…_

_Such a… brute… The Brute, that's it… that's his name… _

_Green—mutated beyond belief… not the same Hank… and Storm… no, Bloodstorm…_

_Dracula… _

…_she's a vampire. Killed… Forge…?_

_Something is wrong with this place… but everything is right._

_I belong here—with Maddie, with my son… Scotty…_

_Leading… the X-Men..?_

_With Rogue, Gambit… Iceman… Lorna… _

_Lorna…_

…_no, Polaris is an X-Man—with her father, Magneto…_

_The Six._

_I lead The Six._

"…Alex?"

* * *

"Something's up," Emma said, pulling back and facing Cyclops and Beast.

"I just read it as well, Emma," Hank had already interjected. "I have a very strange feeling about this."

"His awareness of what is real and what is not is fluctuating greatly. He's… conscious in a way he shouldn't be; we'll be able to monitor what's going on, but it's as if he's literally somewhere else… rather than dreaming," Emma answered Scott's questions before he could ask them.

"…fascinating," Hank muttered, a broken record as he turned to the screen before him.

* * *

"Alex, your son would really like it if you gave him a kiss goodnight."

Havok's eyes shifted as he looked down at a small boy—brown hair, big eyes… _his_ eyes… The boy seemed to back away slightly as Alex approached, but he lifted his son into his arms, looking into his face before kissing him gently on the forehead.

Madelyne Pryor's hand over her heart for a moment, the woman smiled warmly as she took her son into her arms, the boy far too old for such an event. "I'll see you in a minute, Mr. Summers."

"See that you do," he joked somewhat stiffly. As she walked out of the room, Havok turned—

"I hope I didn't startle you, Havok," the cold, shrill voice of Ororo Munroe spoke at once. Where no one had stood seconds before was the woman, leather-clad and quite a sight, her red eyes peering into your very soul. "I have a report."

Summers, having inaudibly screamed, only stared at her. He winced. "Storm..? What's… are you…?" Then he remembered, as if on cue—

"Bloodstorm," she corrected him, squinting her eyes as she spoke. "You are not yourself."

"Just… had a late night," he forced. Everything was so familiar—like the weirdest case of Déjà vu to ever hit the Summers family.

Which was probably saying a lot.

"My report, Havok?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"It appears that Magneto and his team are—"

"_Hank, are you seeing this?"_

The two Six members stared at one another for a moment, Bloodstorm instinctively turning into mist and swirling about the room, searching for any source of intrusion.

"…Emma?"

Then it hit him. Emma. This wasn't real—so why was it becoming so…reminiscent?

"Emma?" Bloodstorm asked curtly. "Was that some sort of psychic call? Havok, who is Emma? The barriers in this castle should have—"

"Just a friend, Ororo," he replied. "She's helping me... like you are..."

Bloodstorm had narrowed her eyes, something she'd done quite frequently. "Very well."

* * *

"Rather than fragments," Hank murmured to himself – he was doing a lot of that, Scott had noticed… though he was used to it, "we're receiving every ounce of what's going on… utterly fascinating…"

"For a man with a Ph.D., you sure have a limited vocabulary, Hank."

Flashing a toothy grin at Cyclops, Hank replied. "I wouldn't want to disassociate myself from present company by forcing you to pull out a dictionary, Scott." He waited for a moment. "And from now on, in my lab – call me 'Doctor.'"

"Your overindulgence in being verbose aside, please," Emma looked to the two, "I'd like to remind you two that we are trying to help Alex… and I wouldn't mind a little quiet.

_Doctor_."

The two men nodded apologetically—but Emma soon broke the new silence herself. "In case you hadn't noticed, Alex and this Ororo detected my speaking to you, Hank. Something which cannot happen again."

"My utmost apologies, Emma – it shall not happen again," Hank said mockingly, returning to his computer yet again.

"Keep me posted," Scott looked to his girlfriend and then one last time to Hank. "I'm going to head out."

Emma inserted a thought in Scott's head—something Hank wouldn't have detected had he not seen his leader grin from ear to ear. "…trying to work, if you please," he laughed.

Cyclops left Hank's lab—and as he turned the corner, found himself staring into a familiar face.

He was speechless for a moment as the woman before him frantically examined her surroundings.

"…Madelyne?"


End file.
